KBattleship is a TCP/IP-based boardgame similar to the common game played on a sheet of paper, where two players try to battle the other's fleet. KBattleship has just been moved into the KDE Games package and will be publicly available with the KDE 2.2 release. For the moment, you can only get it via APPS.KDE.com, anonymous CVS, CVSup, or a recent kdegames snapshot. Check it out!

We found a bug in the imap that didn't show in our internal testing early today, we are putting up new packages in about an hour.

We submitted the story to dot, but sometimes there is a delay. I'm not really sure how it works to decide to run a story or when it runs, I just know they are all volunteers so they are probably very busy.

Wow, that's what I call service! Post a message to a forum and get the CEO of the company responding within a few hours! And they say Linux doesn't have good support. :) Shawn, I'll say it again, you are the man.

Well, first of all, there is no reason to put down KBattleship. It's no Quake 3, but I'm sure it's big enough news to those who appreciate how addictive even the simplest Internet games can be. ;)

As for the Aethera and Kapital issues, we did announce the first releases, and we will probably announce the final releases. Dre was going to mention the new betas in our new weekly app roundup. There is a *lot* of good stuff coming out of theKompany.com these days, and we're not sure if dot.kde.org should make a main article out of every item, for various reasons.

However, I'm glad to see that on top of the mention on apps.kde.com (and hence the app boxes on www.kde.org and dot.kde.org), LinuxToday also carried the announcements which got plenty of hits and comments.

Btw, I heard that KMail CVS has IMAP too. I still use Mutt on a Unix shell, so I wouldn't know. ;)

yep, i am sorry, and you are probably right about not posting aethera, altough i'd like to see some discussion about it (i think its a good way for the aethera developers to get feedback too), but since it will be mentioned at the end of the week, it won't be a problem.
i surely think kbattleship is a lovely game, but i think the dot should not become a second apps.kde.com.

A developer announced the existence and move of KBattleship from kdenonbeta to kdegames for the first time, and already you fear we're becoming a second apps.kde.com? At the same time, you lament the lack of news on the new Aethera beta release... an app which we've already announced here in the past. ;)

I've mentioned this before, but I don't mind at all focusing on the occasional "small" app from time to time. It can't be that bad a thing...

well
1 i was wrong as i admitted before (exams you know, i should not be here atm :p)
2 aethera is seen by a lot of people as the kde equivalent of evolution, and evolution is getting a lot of attention (its even in the gnome 1.4 press release). (okay i am not saying now kde should act that way too and i am totally not saying we should fight a war, but it seemed evident to my small mind)

It's easier for KDE to do it this way, so it's up to the distributors to split the packages.
Debian already does this, and so does Caldera and Suse, I believe. No idea about the others. I think apps.kde.com might also split the packages for you, if you ask nicely. ;)

It compiled OK on my system but then it wouldn't launch. I got an error that said that i didn't have battleship pictures installed. There in the directory though. Oh yes i think its a real pity that aethera beta 2 and kapital beta 2 haven't been listed. The Kompanys doing more than there far share for kde. Seems they should get better treatment. I now Xamians evolution isn't getting the cold shoulder over there.

Aethera and Kapital are not programs included in KDE. Dot.kde.org is, for the most part, about development within the KDE team. However, the Dot did give postings for Aethera and Kapital when they first came to be. This is good enough, don't you think?

It's really frustrating for me to read such accusations as I'm torn on many sides. I would like to think that the dot covers more than just "development within the KDE team", but that doesn't mean we should post long beta announcements for each app.

Like I said, these betas *will* be mentioned in the weekly app round up. We are just trying to follow a sane policy here.

Even worse than you realize, Eazel and Nautilus is getting the cold shoulder from many GNOME users now. Ximian not yet, but does anyone realize that these two companies have all but destroyed GNOME? There does not seem to be any independent GNOME activity anymore, it's Ximian vs Eazel, and Eazel is going down already, while Ximian has branded GNOME as Ximian GNOME and taken over the development and Eazel has shoved an obnoxious Nautilus down GNOME users throats.

This has nothing to do with theKompany.com which is a decent third party company trying to make a living. They at least are not trying to take over KDE with obnoxious "services".

I'll give you an amen on that one. I guess its just frustrating. The Kompany is bring me and i know lots of users apps that we want to see. Their so small their advertising budget has to be minuscule. So for most people the dot is where they hear about their applications. I know many of us want to see the succeed desperately. This will mean the success of kde and us having the quality applications that we need. I'm glad that the qt license allows people like the kompany to sell there proprietary software. The alternative is to become stuffed monkey peddlers like Xamian. I don't think Nautilus has a prayer. You're right about them both destroying gnome. I used to be a gnome user. They've really buried it.

Umm, Ximian GNOME is not GNOME, and there is no subsciption stuff it the 1.4 GNOME release of natilus. Eazel and Ximian have big contracts with companies like HP, SUN, DELL and more. Also you might be a bit confused about that GNOME/Gtk liscencing, Eazel wanted to make their apps GPL. Just because MS sells mice dosen't mean that there scrounging for money. Of course with a mastery of the english language like yours(especialy the spelling) your FUD is not very effective(and the fact that you probably use AOL). I use KDE but people should realize that GNOME is a very good DE, just because it may be the competition in your mind dosen't mean that you have to FUD it, some of the KDE people are worst than MS.

Friend Microsoft sells many things. Xamian sells stuff animals and t-shirts. I don't like Microsoft but I'm not fawned of carneys peddling their stuffed animals and t shirts. Have i made a mistake? Oh i think you can pick up a coffee cup or something as well. Its not FUD its the truth.

Excuse me, but your comments do make you seem like a troll (not a good one at Trolltech, by the way ;-). KDE is a great desktop environment; so is GNOME. Let the flames lie.

The GNOME community is much larger than both Ximian and Eazel, just as the KDE community is much larger than theKompany. Nonetheless, these companies do seem to be making valuable contributions to the respective environments, no?

There is no comparison between The Kompany and Eazel and Xamian. The Kompany has not or has any intention to take over the development of KDE. Plus the The Kompany doesn't sell any stupid stuffed monkeys and that an important distinction.

Umm, I allready wrote what Ximain is selling, but since you may have trouble understanding I'll make it simpler.

When you have a large project like GNOME or KDE just jumping in and developing the core can't realy be done. Because of the size of the project it takes a while to be productive, this is where Eazel and Ximain come in. Large UNIX vendors like SUN and HP are switching from CDE to GNOME, this means that there has to be a port of GNOME to Solaris OE and HP-UX, and not just a try to recompile fix 10 lines of code and then compile. Unlike linux, nothing is included into Solaris OE or HP-UX until it's had extensive(many months) of testing, also GNOME dosen't do everything, SUN and HP may need many things added or fixed. Another problem with something like GNOME is that, saying something like GNOME x.x is misleading, GNOME is just a bunch of libraries and components, these libraries depend on each other, this means that if you change the ABI to one alot of the others break. If SUN was to fork GNOME then they would have to hire a bunh of programmers that would be unproductive for months, also they would eventualy change a bunch of the ABI's, that means that they can't just use the cool new GNOME stuff that non SUN employees write, and porting the stuff then takes a while because the SUN programmers have to learn how the stuff works, eventualy port it with lot's of work and then test it, by the time there done alot of time has gone by. So the solution to this is for a company like Ximain to hire a bunch of the GNOME core hackers and just have them do the GNOME core work and the porting, this solves all the headaches for companies like SUN and HP. Also SUN may have some in house programmers that work on GNOME, when these people get stuck they just call up there Ximain support and get help from the people that wrote the code. This is Eazel's and Ximain's main source of income, everything else is just extra. If this is too confusing for you just tell me, I will make it even simpler(You use AOL :) )

It's hard to argue with someone that has bought so thoroughly into Xamians investor propaganda. Porting apps is no sustainable business plan or is selling stuffed monkeys for that matter. If you believe that crap i don't know what i could say to change your mind. Come back after taking dose of common sense. Now i know someone that lost a lot of money last April when the Internet stocks tanked. What's with the AOL thing? Seems that's a favorite accusation of all the slash dorks out there.

Free (aka open source) software by its very nature prevents people from selling software for an appreciable profit. So, the profit lies in services. Selling services is what both Ximian and Eazel do. They also write (IMHO very good) software for free (as in beer) to help with the services, to sow good will among the open source community, and to leverage their expertise with potential customers who will pay for services.

This, I think, is as ESR envisioned it. Is this economic model truly an evil, nefarious one? I, for one, would rather have an free software company selling services and stuffed monkeys on the side than a Microsoft-type company selling proprietary software that emprisons you as a customer.

Ok friend why don't you go over too their web sites and report back here with a summery of their services that there selling and that you can sign up for and how much they cost. (Hint: They don't have any.)

Ximian sells GNOME support and has contracts with vendors like SUN, HP to get GNOME on their platforms, the reason that SUN or HP dosen't just fork the code is because of all sort of versioning problems and incompatible libs, it makes sense to have Ximain do the porting. But any buisnes that has a chance to make more money will jump at it, even if it is selling stuffed monkeys. But I garauntee you that a very small amount of there income is coming from stuffed animals. I believe that there also selling software subscription services for linux like APT-repository but the software is not all a year old, and I think there selling CD's but I doubt they'll get any money off of them.

Their not selling any services. Just stuffed monkeys and T-shirts. Your right about it being very little money but so is the Sun Redhat deals. Xamian and Eazel are just burning though venture capital. Sooner or later it will dry up. What then? Maybe then they will acualy try and charge for red carpet. The end result will be them both going tits up .com. Then the gnome hackers will have to relearn to hack there desktop again without having the private companies to do it for them.

Yeah, you're right. We should all like the Kompany better because their budget is small and because they're jealous of all the attention Gnome is getting. Oh, whoops! Did I say that?

No one is "destroying" Gnome. Point out just ONE thing that Ximian or Eazel have done to "wreck" Gnome. It's likely impossible to "wreck" GPL'd software. Don't like Ximian's packaging of Gnome? Don't use it. Don't like Nautilus? Stick with GMC. These companies have done nothing but improve Gnome greatly, adding features and functionality. And thanks to the license you apparently scorn, if I don't like what Eazel or Ximian does, I can fork the code and do whatever I like with it.

If you like KDE, promote KDE. If you like Gnome, promote Gnome, but what's the point of talking about how sh*tty the one you're not using is. I love Gnome, but I know KDE has some VERY cool features. I simply don't choose to use it - I prefer Gnome. That's the beauty of Linux - since the software is Free, all becomes a matter of choice. Using KDE and promoting it should be an inherant statement that you like it better than Gnome.

I don't think this was a troll post. He was saying how he felt, and for the most part, I agree with him. Look at Gnotices, many users don't like Eazel and Ximian, because it SEEMS that independent GNOME development has pretty much stalled since these companies appeared. Actually, I think GNOME's development pace HAS decreased. Thats why many people don't like these companies.

Of course, you can tell anyone to continue using GMC if he doesn't like Nautilus, but GMC isn't developed any further DUE TO Nautilus' existence, isn't that so?

I think thekompany has acted very wisely by not taking over development of KDE programs, like konqueror or koffice, but rather adding applications that haven't been there at all before (well, mostly). That way, they don't influence the KDE development itself that much. They just give KDE an end-user base, which it needs so much.

This isn't supposed to be a troll posting either, but I DO think eazel and Ximian are a problem for GNOME. It's not like they should disappear, as some people have said on Gnotices, but they need to find a solution to this quickly.

I read Gnotices on a regular basis, and while some people are squawking about not liking Nautilus, there are MANY who are giving very positive feedback about the project, too. When people do complain, it's usually about the same few things:

1) Speed - while a wholly valid point, this just keeps improving on every release. What's more, I'm starting to think that perhaps people just aren't using the various speed options Nautilus provides (ie: turn off anti-aliasing, etc). As I understand it, this also remains one of Eazel's top priorities for Nautilus - speed improvements.

2) Memory usage - Nautilus uses about 12-16mb on my system. Tales of it taking up something like 90mb are from people not knowing how to interpret memory information in top on multi-threaded programs - 6 threads x 15mb does not equal 90mb of memory used. Yes, 12-16mb can seem like a lot, but with SDRAM becoming pennies a MB, 15mb doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. Nautilus is feature-rich, and I expect to pay for those features in a larger footprint. Personally, I'm impressed it doesn't use more memory for all it does.

3) Lack of cut'n'paste file management - this feature wasn't included because the Eazel developers saw the cut'n'paste paradigm as "flawed" and wanted to implement something better. If one reads any of the recent interviews or mailing list archives, a cut'n'paste like system will be in the very next revision of Nautilus.

4) Services - some people hate the idea that Eazel is trying to make money without selling software. How horrible. I think that those who really hate the inclusion of Eazel Services in Nautilus are in the vocal minority, not to mention being ungrateful sods. ;) Besides, the Gnome 1.4 version of Nautilus *doesn't* include Eazel Services.

So really, it's not so much Eazel that people don't like, they're generally just unhappy that some of their favorite features are missing from Nautilus. This is a perfectly valid thing, but what's great about any Open Source project is that criticism is a GOOD thing - the more people talk about what they want, the more the developers know what they should consider for implementing and in what order.

I also still cease to see how stopping GMC development is somehow a bad thing. Should Microsoft be developing Win 3.1 because some people don't like Win 9x? (If 3.1 was Open Source, those who liked it could do it themeselves, but I digress...) The reason GMC development stopped is because apparently none of the people developing Gnome care to use GMC any longer - if they wanted to continue development on it, they'd be free to - no one "controls" GPL'd software - all are free to do as they will, provided that they give back to the community that they have benefitted from. If Eazel becomes unresponsive, or if Nautilus doesn't improve, a group may very well start up to work on GMC again - and all the more power to 'em! Viva choice!

The point is, Eazel and Ximian CAN'T "destroy" Gnome. If someone doesn't like what these two companies do, they can take Gnome in their own direction.

If someone doesn't like what these two companies do, they can take Gnome in their own direction.

Thats a fantasy. They would have to start a whole new project. Xamian and Eazel now control gnome. Someone could create gnome apps but they would'nt go into the default gnome. Gnome is no longer a Hacker destop. Its a corporate Desktop.

What u talkin bout curtis? New packages are added to every minor version relase (that is, x.x, whereas x.x.x is ultra-minor release, and x is major release). In kde 2.1, they added noatun. In kde 2.2, they are adding kbattleship. These are both just examples!

I think your exactly right, GNOME is realy going down the crapper. KDE has the same problen with TrollTech and theKompany, but that could be solved. I realy believe that the KDE developers should fork Qt and make CORBA bindings to get around the liscencing issue(that also fixes language bidings, and helps with stuff like Doc/View), also software written shouldn't go into the KDE you download. Qt is not as bad as what Ximain and Eazeal has done, but look at how many KDE developers work for TrollTech and linux companies. The thing is that Qt suffers becuse of TrollTech needing a Windows version, if Qt were made UNIX only alot of stuff could be fixed, look at just the most basic parts of Qt they use MOC instead of someting like SigC++ because of MSVC++, also they don't use stl because of MSVC++. All this not to mention that theKompany is trying to control stuff like the KDE scriting and trying to control the development tools and API's and such, why should my painting program be more bloated just so that theKompany can sell stencils? I think that the KDE developers should look at the mess called GNOME and realize that there heading down the same path, it's not too late to stop in KDE though. I think if companies make something part of KDE they should do there own fork and keep KDE a community project.

John I've got to take exception to some of your points here. Take control of scripting? We've built a scripting environment with VeePee that is freely avaiable to everyone and runs on KDE, GNOME and Windows. We are working with both KDE and GNOME to see if it can be put into the environment. If you've got a scripting environment done, then by all means you should get it included.

What does our selling stencils have to do with a bloated painting program? Kivio has nothing to do with anything else other than the fact it is in KOffice, but it's not a painting program. Again, if you have a flowcharting program available, then by all means release it and put it in KOffice.

That was satire if you couldn't tell, I prefer KDE but GNOME is a realy amazing peice of software as well, and the companies that support it put out good stuff, these people have no idea what there talking about, I'm just trying to make them realize how stupid they sound.